Focus at seminal Clark conference remains on sustainable living

Saturday

Apr 6, 2013 at 6:00 AM

By Steven H. Foskett Jr. TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Since Clark University held a conference 25 years ago about the human impact on the global environment, the science of sustainability has emerged, and the realities pointed out by that science present huge challenges to the future of the planet, Harvard professor William C. Clark told an audience on campus this week.

“It's a systematic way of saying which kinds of impacts on the environment are good for society and which are not,” said Mr. Clark, who was part of the “The Earth as Transformed by Human Action” conference at Clark in 1987.

He said sustainability science has evolved quickly to include aspects of several disciplines and has applied a scientific method to global environmental issues that can pinpoint the breaking point of an ecosystem.

For example, he talked about how the balance of promoting biodiversity in land development — with revenue for an economy — is relatively penalty-free over a broad range. He said a study of the Columbia River basin in the Pacific Northwest revealed the first four or five dams on the river had 90 percent value to the economy, with 5 percent environmental degradation. If the development had stopped there, the basin would have been fine. But the last dams built destroyed whole systems, resulting in a net loss for society, Mr. Clark said.

One of the single biggest challenges for the global environment, he said, is the continued use of fossil fuels. “It's not just inefficient: Every day you do it, you are worse at the end of the day than you were before.”

Mr. Clark said fossil-fuel burning is the careless use of a natural resource to meet very short-term goals, rendering future generations and people on the other side of the planet as invisible.

Mr. Clark said a strong current of social justice runs through the science of sustainability, leading to the need to address economic inequalities and unsustainable methods.

A society's view of sustainability often depends on what it values, Mr. Clark said. Sometimes research shows that balance needs to be found in meeting the needs of the environment and its human occupants. He cited research in Thailand about whether the government should designate an area of forest as protected. The forest was protected, but it disrupted lives of people in the area. Sustainability science has examined that flipside of environmental protection, he said.

The “Earth Transformed” conference highlighted international research tracing the effect of human activity on the global environment over the past 300 years.

Mr. Clark gave the Albert, Norma and Howard '77 Geller Endowed Lecture, and he was followed by discussion with two other professors involved in the original conference: B.L. Turner II and Robert W. Kates. Mr. Kates is a professor emeritus at Brown University, and Mr. Turner is the Gilbert F. White Professor of Environment and Society at Arizona State University. Both men are formerly of Clark's Graduate School of Geography.

The lecture and commentary capped a day of events celebrating the 25th anniversary of “Earth Transformed.”

Mr. Turner said “Earth Transformed” was the first systematic and quantitative assessment of the human impact on the Earth's ecosystem. He said it was also important in that it focused on the global environment as a whole, not just climate change.

Contact Steve Foskett at sfoskett@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveFoskettTG.